Wednesday, July 19, 2017

“There are scars,
still. Even within the miracles.”
I said that this last week,
while visiting with a wonderful mother, and answering some questions
about my life, my travels, how my family was built and my work in
Haiti.

I have thought about that a lot this week.
The scars.
The aftermath of struggle, even after the
meant to be, after the “I prayed about this”, or “this felt so
right”, the how did this fall so perfectly into place, but feel
like such a train wreck in the aftermath.

We all feel
this. At one time or another, about an adoption, a job, a health
recovery, a marriage, parenting, moving, a life altering thing, that
felt SO SO right and SO SO wanted, and yet here it is the gaping
scars and struggle afterwards.

In that moment I was
sharing about an 8 month old baby girl brought to the Orphanage while
I was working and doing Child Development assessments. Her face
seemed thin, yet her dress was covering her legs and arms and seemed
to have some weight on her.
I almost dropped her.
In the
same as when you go to pick up a box expecting it to be heavy, and it
is empty. That 8 month old child weighed 4 pounds. She was starving
and emaciated, and her poor mother also starving had lost her
breast milk.
In hopes we would accept her daughter into the Orphanage that we might save her, she had layered over 15 onesies to make her baby appear bigger than she was.
We tried a bottle, but the sweet little girl just
vomited up anything we tried to give her.
I went with her mother
to the hospital, where they refused to admit her, because she was too
far gone.
The nurse tried an IV at the Orphanage, but she was
far too dehydrated.

I asked her mother what she
wanted to do, and she simply cried, and said she didn't want to watch
her baby die.

For days nights, I and other volunteers held this
little girl, alternating pedialyte, and pedia sure through an infant
Tylenol medicine dropper. Miraculously she lived.
Still to this
day the effects of this early starvation, no doubt plague this little
girls need to never feel satiated, physically and emotionally.
Scars
even in the Miracles..

I think of my children, and how far
they have come, and yet the still desperate, quirky behaviors that
still pop up, reminding me...”scars even in the mountains they have over come, they have carried some of those things, fears, anxieties with them”.

I don't
know if it is media, or fairy-tales, that makes us feel so robbed
when at the end our miracles lie more speed bumps, struggles and
anxiety ridden decisions to be made. Why we cant tie everything up in
a perfect 90 minute story line, or in a beautiful “and they lived
happily ever after”...I don't know. I would like to blame Disney for not following the original as written storylines.
What I do know, is it
really isn't that way for anyone.

When our “meant to
be’s” feel like a proverbial Ice Cream cone that just face
planted in the dirt.

What I
do know, is the Notebook, is just a movie, and Cinderella probably
drove the Prince nuts with her OCD need to clean the castle, and
slightly more disturbing propensity to talk to vermin and make them
clothes.

I do know that even in relationships with
spouses, children and other family members what was such a firm
answer to a hope, dream or prayer, can also turn to pain, and loss
and something you never ever imagined. I do know that just because of
the pain, doesn't mean it wasn't right or good or even miraculous, it
is all still part of the miracle, even in the change or need to regroup and replan. It is still part of what is to
come.
The scars are part of the beautiful. The miracle more
real than the fairy-tales. We are supposed to have hard and good, and
ugly and beautiful. Heart ache and Loss and Love and Anxiety all
wrapped up in there.
We are.
Even when it sucks.
Even
when we try our hardest and it doesn’t look or feel close to
enough.
Healing can take a lifetime.
Healing and Happy
endings never, ever end up looking like we thought they would.

Ever.

Look around.
Look
deep within.
Even in the good.
Even in the
hard.
Breathe.

You are a beautiful mess of a miracle,
right now, exactly how you are ,full of scars and overcoming, we all
are.
Keep going, keep accepting.
I see you.
You
beautiful mess, you.

Me, the crazy one they call Mama...

SO here's the thing....

I stink at blogging, no really I do...by the way I am dyslexic and can NOT spell worth a darn, but I write anyway.

I have the best of intentions...but life happens.

I am parenting NINE amazing kiddo's.One that is no longer safe enough to be in my home...and I mourn that, every day.This blog is about being flawed but doing the best you can do. It is about parenting some Fabulous kiddo's with some heartbreaking problems. We are just a family.A family living, laughing, crying and shaking it up as much as we can to ward off the effects of severe trauma, anxiety, depression, psychotic tendencies, suicidal ideation, addictions, bulimia, anorexia, ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorder,Hording, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, they and we are surviving by the skin of their teeth, everyday, but we are NOT giving up.This blog is about surviving daily life with a child with type one diabetes... I am just a Mom, dedicated to MY children, dedicated to being a Forever Family, and giving some of these kids whom have never had a safe anything, a HOME: a soft place to fall.

Who this is Really for!

Sooo if you have found us and just started reading...
I am protecting my kids names out of respect. Lets be honest, if I am going to talk about their behaviors...they don't need their names out there...because it is the BEHAVIORS that are hard, it is the anger and destruction of the trauma that they experienced that needs to be named, my children are deep down good, with a whole lot of broken/nasty/ugly tossed over to disguise what is so wonderful about them.
I have six with trauma disorders. That is what is SO gosh darn HARD... they see it and are triggered some-days, by just looking into each others eyes.
MY AMAZING and sometimes ANGRY ELVES:
We have 2 bio kiddo's:

and 5, COUNT THEM F.I.V.E. Haitian Sensations .....

Our kiddo's came home 20 days after the Haitian Earthquake. Hubbie and I traveled to Haiti 10 days afterward. It has deeply changed, traumatized and effected our family in soooo many ways. So on top of some MAJOR Attachment issues, we are also all coping with PTSD, ODD, RAD, SPD and Borderline Personality Disorder....this is OUR Season of Healing.